Topeka ? Moderate Republicans were caught napping in the Kansas State Board of Education races. Now they’re trying to make up for the problems caused by their sleepiness.

Two moderate incumbents, Sonny Rundell, of Syracuse, and Val DeFever, of Independence, lost GOP primary races to conservative challengers.

This month, both kicked off write-in campaigns to prevent the Republican nominees from winning in the general election.

They’re attempting to preserve the 7-3 majority held by a coalition of Democrats and moderates who capitalized on the shame and embarrassment some voters felt after a brouhaha rooted in the teaching of evolution in Kansas classrooms.

Rundell and DeFever acknowledge that winning as a write-in is a daunting challenge. They know the election could leave the board with a 5-5 split and lead to two years of deadlocks on many issues.

Both moderate incumbents cited a low turnout in the Aug. 6 primary, particularly among moderates, as the reason they lost. Only 26 percent of the state’s registered voters, a record low, went to the polls.

“They just didn’t perceive a threat,” DeFever said. “People were very complacent and just didn’t vote.”

In the 5th District, which covers western and north-central Kansas, Connie Morris of St. Francis defeated Rundell.

She’s gained statewide notoriety for proposing the state prohibit the children of illegal immigrants from enrolling in school and giving the children of legal immigrants only a year of English instruction if they are not proficient in the language.

She says the state can’t afford to provide such services. She promises to push the issue, despite the anger of Hispanic activists and a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said it was unconstitutional to deny children of illegal immigrants access to public schools.

Rundell acknowledges he didn’t speak up enough.

“We just didn’t get the vote out,” Rundell said. “Maybe we were all just too overconfident.”

In the 9th District, some moderates missed the fact that GOP nominee Iris Van Meter is the mother of Kris Van Meteren, a longtime activist and former executive director of the Kansas Republican Assembly, a group conservatives formed after the 1998 elections. He changed his last name years ago, to reflect its original Dutch spelling.

He said he advised his mother to run a low-key campaign, sensing it would lull DeFever’s supporters into believing the incumbent didn’t face a serious challenge.

“(DeFever’s) friends were telling her that she didn’t even have to campaign, she was so popular with education leaders,” Van Meteren said. “They weren’t vigilant.”

Watch them grow

The seeds of Rundell’s and DeFever’s defeats this year may have been planted by moderate victories two years ago.

In 2000, evolution was the issue. A 6-4 conservative majority had imposed new science testing standards that de-emphasized evolution. Widely perceived as attacking the teaching of the theory, the board made Kansas the punchline of jokes around the world.

Moderates unseated two conservative incumbents in the GOP primary and won an open seat previously held by a conservative. Afterward, they said the results showed how few Kansans agreed with the conservatives’ agenda.

As moderates relaxed, conservatives prepared for a fight.

Van Meteren said conservatives saw two races as close. One conservative, Mary Douglass Brown of Wichita, lost her primary race but received 48 percent of the vote. A Democrat, Bill Wagnon of Topeka, retained his seat with only a 51 percent majority.

Only in Johnson County, did a conservative incumbent lose big..

“You get west of K-7, and I don’t think people got that worked up,” Van Meteren said.

Passionate politics

Passionate about a whole range of fiscal and social issues, conservatives get to the polls for the primary, while many moderates don’t bother to vote. It’s happened repeatedly during the past decade.

“It’s very hard for moderates to win Republican primaries,” said GOP State Chairman Mark Parkinson. “Conservatives have a built-in base of votes in the primary.”

That built-in base translated into victories for Morris and Van Meter.